Trump Administration

The New York Times reports: Columbia University, which has faced criticism for not striking a more defiant stand against efforts by the Trump administration to set its agenda, showed signs late Monday of adopting a tougher tone. In a note sent to the campus, the acting president pledged that the school would not allow the federal government to “require us …

“Every time I read a story about this, it’s Maryland father, Maryland father. They don’t mention he’s a member of MS-13, who is a designated terrorist group, one of the most violent gangs in the world. They don’t mention that he is an MS-13 member. They don’t mention he’s an El Salvadoran citizen being held by the country of El …

Reuters reports: One of US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s top advisors, Dan Caldwell, was escorted out of the Pentagon on Tuesday after being identified during an investigation into leaks at the Department of Defense, a US official told Reuters. Caldwell, a senior advisor to Pete Hegseth, was placed on administrative leave for “an unauthorized disclosure,” the official said, speaking on …

The Washington Post reports: The U.S. dollar is an early casualty of President Donald Trump’s us-against-the-world trade war. The dollar has lost almost 10 percent of its value since Inauguration Day with about half of that decline coming this month, after the president’s decision to lift taxes on imported goods to their highest level since 1909. The weaker dollar — …

Politico reports: The White House’s Department of Government Efficiency office has targeted a behavioral diversity program to be cut from Brookfield Zoo. Problem is, it has nothing to do with diversity, equity and inclusion in the traditional DEI sense. “It’s about bio-diversity and animal welfare,” said Brookfield Zoo Chicago Senior VP Andrea Rodgers. The funding cut wasn’t a complete surprise, …

Reuters reports: A federal judge on Tuesday threw out a U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau rule capping credit card late fees at $8, after the agency agreed with opponents that the rule adopted during President Joe Biden’s administration was illegal. U.S. District Judge Mark Pittman in Fort Worth, Texas granted a joint request by the CFPB and a coalition of …

The Washington Post reports: The Trump administration is using personal data normally protected from dissemination to find undocumented immigrants where they work, study and live, often with the goal of removing them from their housing and the workforce. At the Department of Housing and Urban Development, for example, officials are working on a rule that would ban mixed-status households — …

NPR reports: In the first days of March, a team of advisers from President Trump’s new Department of Government Efficiency initiative arrived at the Southeast Washington, D.C., headquarters of the National Labor Relations Board. The small, independent federal agency investigates and adjudicates complaints about unfair labor practices. It stores reams of potentially sensitive data, from confidential information about employees who …

Politico Europe reports: There’s at least one mainstream European politician JD Vance is a fan of: iconic French postwar leader Charles de Gaulle. In an interview with British news and opinion website UnHerd, the U.S. vice president said that de Gaulle — who led the French World War II resistance against the Nazis and was president from 1959 to 1969 …

The Texas Tribune reports: President Donald Trump’s administration on Monday terminated a federal grant to help fund a long-sought high-speed rail line between Dallas and Houston — saying that if the embattled project moves forward, it will have to do so without federal help at this stage. The U.S. Department of Transportation nixed a $63.9 million planning grant for the …

Via press release from the Commerce Department: Today, the U.S. Department of Commerce announced its intent to withdraw from the 2019 Agreement Suspending the Antidumping Investigation on Fresh Tomatoes from Mexico, with termination effective in 90 days. The current agreement has failed to protect U.S. tomato growers from unfairly priced Mexican imports, as Commerce has been flooded with comments from …

Mediaite reports: Pam Bondi refused to say on Monday whether Trump’s proposal to send American citizens to El Salvador’s notorious mega-prison was “legal” after being pressed on the matter by Fox News host Jesse Watters. Watters asked, “The president was musing about sending some of the most horrible people in this country down to that mega-prison. You know, people that …

The Daily Beast reports: Media giant Warner Bros. Discovery was reportedly offered a way into President Donald Trump’s good graces: give his son Donald Trump Jr. his own show. Specifically, someone in the “Trump orbit” told the company that the first son would like to host a nature show on Discovery, according to a sprawling new profile of WBD’s CEO, …

The Washington Post reports: Harvard University officials on Monday rejected Trump administration demands that the school yield to extensive government oversight and make sweeping changes to governance, admissions and hiring practices, calling the directives unlawful and unconstitutional. The administration responded Monday night by saying it would freeze more than $2 billion in federal funding to the Ivy League school. The …

“I think this illegal alien is exactly where he belongs – home in El Salvador. He was in our country illegally. He’s from El Salvador, was born in El Salvador, and oh, the media forgot to mention he is an MS-13 gang member. The media would love for you to believe this is a media darling and that’s just a …

The Cornell Daily Sun reports: The University joined litigation against the U.S. Department of Energy and DOE Secretary Chris Wright, according to a Monday email from President Michael Kotlikoff and Provost Kavita Bala. The plaintiffs of the case are alleging that proposed immediate cuts to indirect costs for University research grants are unlawful by violating federal regulations. The lawsuit was …

The Hill reports: The White House is preparing a rescission package that will seek to have Congress claw back more than $9 billion in approved funding through cuts to public broadcasting, USAID and agencies Trump has sought to eliminate. That includes money for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which oversees PBS and NPR, money for USAID and agencies like the U.S. …

The New York Times reports: Harvard University said on Monday that it had rejected policy changes requested by the Trump administration that would have placed “unprecedented” demands on the institution, setting up a showdown between the administration and the nation’s wealthiest university. A letter to Harvard from the Trump administration on Friday demanded that the university reduce the power of …

Politico reports: The proposal for fiscal 2026 would allocate $28.4 billion to State and USAID, down from $54.4 billion in the enacted fiscal 2025 budget. That includes cuts demanded by the White House Office of Management and Budget. The proposal would eliminate or substantially cut numerous programs, including ones that promote democracy, support educational and cultural exchanges, fight drug trafficking …

The Hill reports: A new lawsuit filed in federal court in D.C. accused the Trump administration of violating federal law last month when the online database overseen by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) “went dark, without explanation.” The lawsuit, brought by nonprofit Protect Democracy Project, names OMB and its director, Russell Vought, as defendants. “Congress mandated prompt transparency …